Building Digital Trust and Rapport in the Tourism Industry: A Bibliometric Analysis and Detailed Overview

Abstract

In the rapidly changing environment of the tourism business, building digital trust and rapport has appeared as a critical factor for sustaining profitable customer relationships and confirming long-term business survival. This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the research landscape with respect to digital trust and rapport establishment within the tourism context using techniques for bibliometric analysis in conjunction with visualization. This research paper explores publication trends, identifies key journals and authors, and determines the most productive countries, academic institutions, and primary research keywords. It involves analyzing publications from the Scopus database focusing on the duration between 2014 and 2023. The findings show that the digital trust and rapport-building literature expands its importance within the tourism industry due to factors such as competition pressure; customers’ high expectations; the incorporation of technology; and, most recently, the occurrence of pandemics like the COVID-19 pandemic. The US, in particular, can be identified as the most productive country in this research area. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and the International Journal of Hospitality Management appear to be popular scientific publications on this topic. They present the following main research themes: customer engagement, employee conduct, and technology in the construction of trust. This study also underscores the practical role of the findings in successful endeavors within the field, detailing how cultural sensitivity, technological incorporation, and accessibility in service provision would contribute to building digital trust with international customers. Potential future research directions are proposed to advance the understanding of culture, technology, the effects of crises, and the application of other research methods.

1. Introduction

Over the past few decades, the hospitality business has experienced a dramatic and extensive shift due to globalization [1] and the increasing international integration of countries [2]. However, there has been an increase in the demand for global tourism [2] as individuals from distinctive cultures with distinctive expectations look for accommodation and related services all over the world [3]. There is pressure on hospitality contractors regarding the unique digital needs of foreign guests from different cultures [4]. Fundamental to this process is the ability to generate digital trust and a relationship with the visitor [5], leading to pleasurable experiences translating to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and, ultimately, success for the hospitality sector [6].

Guest–host interaction is a significant determinant that influences hospitality. Furthermore, digital trust and rapport are the primary principles of guest–host interaction [5,7]. These features become even more relevant for foreign visitors because of the general challenge newcomers face when trying to locate themselves and their communication when trying to locate themselves and communicate in unfamiliar environments [8]. Digital trust therefore requires the creation of a perception of safety, reliability, and assurance, whereby visitors are assured that they will receive the service they expect whenever they contact service providers [9]. Empathy is established on the basis of courteous and friendly communication and involves perceiving and managing other individuals’ emotions, while rapport refers to establishing a friendly, emotional, and respectful link between guests and hotels [5].

There are several implications highlighted by Fatima and Razzaque [10] and Hwang et al. [7] where digital trust and rapport help guests and hotels. Guests obtain a positive experience whereby they perceive their stay as being joyful and fulfilling with comfort, ease, and meaning [11]. Consequently, they are likely to feel that some of their thoughts and needs have been valued during the service interaction and will thus have greater satisfaction with the service interaction [12,13]. In essence, building digital trust and rapport means that hospitality organizations can achieve improved customer compliance, positive word of mouth, and enhanced brand and organizational performance [7,14].

Establishing digital rapport and trust with foreign guests is both a cause and an effect of the globalization of the business, which is inherent to the hospitality industry [15]. Communication is likely to disrupt relationship development, since it is possible for associates from two different cultures to have entirely different communication styles, rules, expectations of communication, and what should be communicated, since some information can easily be interpreted in either a negative or positive manner [16]. These difficulties might be enhanced by language barriers as guests and hosts, therefore, might be unable to communicate their needs and plans effectively and efficiently [17,18]. The field of study that relates to the dynamics of trust and rapport, especially regarding international guests, is extensive regarding international guests, since both concepts are crucial to the hospitality industry. Bibliometric analysis can be instrumental in methodically analyzing and assessing this research environment to give an idea about the field’s maturation, topics of interest, the authors and organizations contributing most to the field, and areas that could prove fertile for further research [19].

Research themes and significant groups within the area may be viewed by analyzing the presence and frequency of publications, citations, and keywords [20]. This would facilitate an assessment of the effectiveness of numerous strategies that seek to build up these essential facets with foreign guests, as well as help researchers understand how digital trust and rapport has been defined and applied in different hospitality sectors. This study aims to employ bibliometric analysis and visualization techniques to examine trust and rapport with international guests in hospitality contexts, utilizing the Scopus database.

Digital trust and rapport building have become significant factors for success in the tourism industry, as most activities depend on various forms of digital platforms, including booking, reviewing, communicating, and delivering services. Accordingly, much research has been presented regarding different aspects of digital trust and rapport building within hospitality contexts. This body of literature has grown, but a convincing holistic perspective that charts the existing research landscape, identifies key trends, and indicates directions of future research is lacking. This study utilized bibliometric analysis as it allows one to assess publication patterns, influential authors and journals, and research themes through a systematic and quantitative approach.

Digital trust is defined as the willingness of a consumer to rely on the virtual interactions of the providers of hospitality services, such as hotels, restaurants, and travel agencies, with the expectation that the provider will keep one’s data in confidence, provide information accurately and with truthfulness, and fulfill the commitments made [9,21]. This trust is built on various factors, including whether online platforms are perceived as secure, if communication is transparent and responsive, if online reviews and recommendations are seen to have credibility, and if tourism and hospitality businesses are seen to have ethical conduct [22,23]. In a digital environment, a stream of interactions is experienced to be mostly with mediated technology; hence, creating digital trust is critical for customer experience, loyalty, and, finally, maintaining a business’ very existence in the long term.

This study underpins the changing landscape with digital trust and rapport research for academics and practitioners in the tourism industry. It provides new insights into the status of knowledge, identifies influential authors and their publications, and highlights emergent themes of research that show promise for future investigation. This is a powerful way for practitioners to stay updated with cutting-edge findings and learn how such evidence-based strategies can be incorporated into their operations to assist in building customer confidence, satisfaction, and loyalty. To address a few of the crucial knowledge gaps, the current study (1) maps the pattern of growth and development in research on digital trust and rapport in tourism, (2) identifies the most influential journals and productive authors, along with the themes their study covers, (3) assesses the geographic distribution of research activity, and (4) points out which aspects need future research to improve the understanding and application of the principles of building trust and rapport in the digital age.

In addition, all data for the present study stemmed from Scopus, the largest abstract and citation index for peer-reviewed articles globally [24]. Consequently, the study database included several reputable journals that addressed the concept of digital trust and rapport in the context of developing friendly relationships with guests in the hospitality industry. By adopting this approach, the future trends in hospitality, ways of improving guests’ experience, cultural sensitivity in hospitality management, and the utilization of technology in guest interactions became evident. Moreover, this study also explored and graphed the scientific collaborations between the leading authors and the accomplishment of contributors and future skills that were not comprehended in prior studies. Although some of the insights derived from trust and rapport building in the tourism and hospitality industry may be quite evident, filling the gaps in the literature remains significant by drawing a systematic and comprehensive overview of the literature. The analysis of the literature helps categorize key areas of knowledge, trends in publication and citation rates, authors and journals that have the most influential impact on the current state of knowledge, and new promising topics in the field. This study, therefore, endeavors to provide such an overview, with the aid of bibliometric analysis tools to map the extant literature on trust and rapport development in the tourism and hospitality setting.

The hospitality business has placed greater trust in its rapport-building process with guests of different cultures to maintain competitiveness, meet rising customer expectations, adapt to technologies, and manage crises, as captured by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, an overview of publication trends, the most prolific authors, productive countries, and primary research themes in this area is relatively lacking. It creates a gap between developing effective, culturally sensitive, and technologically integrated approaches toward trust building. A bibliometric systematic analysis, in this regard, is needed to map the existing literature [25], identify influential research that had impacts, and find possible future research directions to improve the knowledge theoretically and in practice about this area of study. Therefore, this study aims to give an overall view of the research landscape regarding digital trust and the establishment of rapport in the tourism context by using bibliometric analysis with visualization techniques. The following questions were addressed:

• What is the distribution of trust and rapport-building hospitality publications by year?
• What are the most relevant journals and authors in trust and rapport-building research in hospitality?
• What are the most productive countries in the research area of trust and rapport building within hospitality?
• What are the primary research keywords for trust and rapport-building research in hospitality?
• What is the most important subject area involving trust and building rapport and hospitality?

2. Material and Methods

The purpose of this review is to determine the most frequently published research papers in the field of developing digital trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. This research was conducted in June 2024. In this case, the study was conducted using Scopus, a multi-disciplinary database. For the first search under the research field in the tourism industry, with reference to digital trust and rapport development with international guests, there were 684 publications retrieved. The keywords used in the search engine for a specific field were “digital trust” OR “rapport” AND “Hospitality”. This study focused on the period from 2014 to 2023; from this, 10 years were considered for this investigation. As for the other procedure, some subjects relevant to the present study are business, management and accounting, social sciences, arts and humanities, multidisciplinary, and psychology. Last of all, the research language employed only papers in the English language, disregarding all other languages. The total number of the final published articles selected to be included in the study was 385.

The Bibliometric Analysis

This research employed bibliometric analysis utilizing VOSviewer version 1.6.20 and biblioshiny softwares 4.0.0, which are the most often used tools in the domain of bibliometric analysis.

The following goals are the foundation for this review. First, building digital trust and rapport with the hotel’s guests is now a fascinating field of study, with an increasing amount of research being conducted on it.

As a result, it is necessary to use an accurate machine-learning technique that could look up substantial amounts of recorded literature material on its own to research the topic structure of such a subject field. The present study is being conducted to offer insights into the topics that have been covered. This study’s analytical framework is depicted in Figure 1.

3. Findings

This study’s objective is to explore digital trust and rapport development in the hospitality industry. The research questions guided the discussion of this review’s results.

3.1. Research Question 1

• What is the distribution of trust and rapport-building publications in hospitality by year?

A study of the publishing years was undertaken to address the first finding.

In Figure 2, the review of the publication trend from 2014 to 2023 has shown significant and growing interest as well as research production in the field of trust and rapport development within the context of the hospitality industry. Such research emphasizes the new literature on those ideas to reflect the increasing significance of these ideas as a part of the keys to the improvement of customer relationships and the quality of service.

First, the number of articles in 2014 was relatively low (10). The following years have indicated an uptrend in research interest, with a significant increase starting in 2017. A total of 21 published articles in 2017, 30 in 2018, and 48 in 2019 indicate that academics in the hospitality industry have recognized the importance of trust and rapport. Conversely, there was a minor decrease in 2020, with 44, which could result from disruptions the world over like COVID-19 affecting research production and direction. Still, the trend soon regained pace and the diversification rate was indeed rather vigorous in 2021, with 55 publications; it remained rising in 2022 and 2023, with 69 and 72 publications, respectively.

3.2. Research Question 2

2.

What are the most relevant journals and authors in trust and rapport-building research in hospitality?

The methodology for selecting the top journals in trust and rapport-building academic research within the hospitality field has captured a broad spectrum of articles with differences in the number of published articles, citation rate, and publisher.

Table 1. Top 10 SOURCES journals in “Trust or rapport” and “Hospitality” (2014–2023) (source: authors’ construction based on Scopus database).

N.	Journals	TP	TP**	TC	Cite Score (2023)	The Most Cited Article	Times Cited	Publisher
1	International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management	791	37	13,382	16.9	[26]	875	Emerald Publishing
2	International Journal of Hospitality Management	1028	27	21,819	21.2	[27]	952	Elsevier
3	Sustainability (Switzerland)	55,991	24	381,357	6.8	[28]	1058	MDPI
4	Cornell Hospitality Quarterly	134	10	1135	8.5	[29]	374	SAGE
5	Current Issues in Tourism	795	10	12,291	15.5	[30]	1237	Taylor & Francis
6	Tourism Management	611	10	14,722	24.1	[31]	2183	Elsevier
7	Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management	186	9	3893	20.9	[32]	494	Taylor & Francis
8	African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure	610	8	1649	2.7	[33]	88	Africa Journals
9	Tourism Management Perspectives	487	8	7575	15.6	[34]	665	Elsevier
10	Journal Of Hospitality And Tourism Management	700	7	9331	13.3	[35]	500	Elsevier

TP = total publications, TC = total citations, TP** = total publication in the field of trust and building rapport in hospitality.

offers a clear and concise summary of 10 major journals: total publications, citations, cite scores, most-often-cited articles, and their publishers.

According to Table 1 and Figure 3, the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and the International Journal of Hospitality Management are the best academic journals in trust and building rapport in the hospitality industry. The first journal (791 publications; 13,382 citations) has a cite score of 16.9 and published 37 articles in the field and the second journal (1028 publications; 21,819 citations) has a cite score of 21.2 and published 27 articles in the field. In contrast, the Sustainability journal is notable for being far-reaching, with a huge number of papers (55,991 publications) and very high citations among the top articles (381,357 citations), with a cite score of 6.8. Many other journals contribute significantly. Some journals, such as Current Issues in Tourism (10 publications in trust and building rapport in hospitality and 12,291 total citations and a cite score of 15.5), Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management (9 publications in trust and building rapport in hospitality and 3893 total citations and a cite score of 20.9), and Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (10 publications in trust and building rapport in hospitality and 1135 total citations and a cite score of 8.5), offer influential studies. Furthermore, Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of the most prolific journals in terms of trust and building rapport in hospitality.

Figure 4 explains the concept of Bradford’s Law and the number of sources central to the collection of articles concerning trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. Bradford’s Law assists in sorting out journals as zones, as it provides the productivity index of the journals, where the core source comprises a few journals that produce many articles on a given subject, followed by other journals that produce fewer articles.

Therefore, the y-axis corresponds to the number of publications made by the respective source, while the x-axis corresponds to the journal ranking on a logarithmic scale. The sources are ordered according to the number of articles they have contributed to the issue of concern. The shaded area marked as “Core sources” highlights the journals with the highest output of articles on trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. These journals are the International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Sustainability (Switzerland), Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administrative Quarterly, Current Issues in Tourism, Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, and the African Journal of Hospitality Tourism and Leisure.

The initial drop in the curve indicates that a select few journals have the highest number of articles on the subject, positioning them at the forefront. These are the core sources that the researchers should consider while searching for a considerable amount of literature on trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. The less steep segment of the curve shows that many other journals, on average, publish fewer articles on the topic.

It is common knowledge that it is easier to work with the list of the core journals, so the recognition of the list might help the researchers and practitioners direct their attempts at reading and publishing to the appropriately relevant and highly influential journals in the field of interest. This distribution has Bradford’s Law, which predicts that a significant number of articles in every field are contained in a relatively small number of core titles, with the number of journals gradually increasing as the number of articles they contain decreases. In this regard, it helps guide those attempting to explore this rather extensive terrain of “trust” and “rapport” in the hospitality industry by locating the most influential and relevant source materials among the plentiful options available to researchers.

Conversely, Q2 delved into identifying the most prolific authors in building trust within the hospitality sector. The content analysis focused on “Author”, “Total Publications”, “h-index”, “Total Citations”, “Current Affiliation”, and “Country” as the criteria for analysis, as illustrated in

Table 2. The 15 most prolific authors in trust and building rapport in the hospitality industry (source: authors’ construction based on Scopus database).

	Author	TP	TP**	h-Index	TC	Current Affiliation	Country
1	Han, H.	552	3	79	26,666	Sejong University	South Korea
2	Gursoy, D.	209	4	70	17,728	Washington State University System	United States
3	Bilgihan, A.	124	5	44	7280	College of Business, Boca Raton	United States
4	Foroudi, P.	188	4	35	3987	Brunel University London	United Kingdom
5	Bai, B.	75	4	28	3872	University of Nevada	United States
6	Rather, R.A.	76	4	28	3456	Scientific Researcher, Kashmir	India
7	Guchait, P.	73	4	27	2001	University of Houston	United States
8	Busser, J.A.	57	6	25	2067	University of Nevada	United States
9	Baker, M.A.	50	3	21	1357	Isenberg School of Management, Amherst	United States
10	Šerić, M.	58	5	18	841	Universitat de València	Spain
11	Chafra, J.	20	3	14	520	Bilkent Üniversitesi	Turkey
12	Aljarah, A.	24	3	13	488	Universidad de Salamanca	Spain
13	Shulga, L.V.	25	6	12	445	Shidler College of Business	United States
14	Hao, F.	21	4	9	687	The Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
15	Guzzo, R.F.	13	3	8	253	University of Nevada	United States

TP = total publications, TC = total citation, TP** = total publication in the field of trust and building rapport in hospitality.

.

Table 2 presents the 15 authors who have made the most significant contributions to the field of hospitality research in terms of trust and creating rapport, as determined by Scopus data. The table is organized according to the author’s h-index. In addition, the author who produced the most publications was Han, H., with a total of 552 publications. This author also has an h-index of 79 and is from South Korea. Next, Gursoy, D. has 209 publications and an h-index of 70. The author is from the United States. The author, Bilgihan, has 124 publications and an h-index of 44. Bilgihan is from the United States. Next is Foroudi, P., who has a total of 188 publications, an h-index of 35, and 3987 citations. The author is from the United Kingdom. Moreover, in terms of h-index, the top three are distinct.

On the other hand, the majority of the h-index is attributed to Han, H., who is from South Korea. Following closely are Gursoy, D. from the United States and Bilgihan, A., also from the United States, with h-index scores of 79, 70, and 44, respectively. In addition, Table 2 included data on additional influential writers in the field of trust and creating rapport in hospitality research.

Figure 5 illustrates Lotka’s distribution applied to the authors’ activity to understand productivity in terms of the examination of trust and rapport in the hospitality industry research. Lotka’s Law is a measure of scientific production that specifies that many authors contribute a few papers, while few authors contribute many papers.

The y-axis represents the percentage of authors, and the x-axis represents the documents, which are articles written by those authors. The solid line indicates the actual distribution of author productivity in the studied set, whereas the dashed line illustrates Lotka’s Law distribution.

Just as the curve begins at the bottom-right-side interface, the figure illustrates that a few authors have written many documents on trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. These prolific authors may be essential to the development of the literature. After this steep descent, the curve flattens and goes down slowly and steadily, which indicates that most authors have contributed one or two documents. This distribution is related to Lotka’s Law, which says that the number of authors contributing many articles is far less than that of those who contribute a few.

Knowledge of author productivity can also aid in identifying prominent authors and scholars involved in examining trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. These data can be useful for researchers looking for the best authors to collaborate with or seeking an idea from the most frequently cited and important papers. Also, it presents the dispersion of this participation and reveals how the large majority of the research, if not the production, is conducted by a comparatively small number of people.

By applying Lotka’s Law to visualize an author’s productivity, this figure helps to represent the conception of research outputs and emphasizes the significance of outstanding producers and the numerous researchers who work for the field’s development.

3.3. Research Question 3

3.

What are the most productive countries in hospitality’s digital trust and rapport-building research area?

An analysis of the publication countries was conducted to address the first finding.

In the analysis made for the most productive countries in the trust and rapport-building research area within hospitality, “country”, “Total Publications”, “and “most productive academic institution” were chosen as the analysis criteria, as shown in

Table 3. List of the 10 most productive countries in the trust and building rapport (source: authors’ construction based on Scopus database).

Rank	Country	Most Productive Academic Institution	TP**	Tourist Arrivals (2023)	Tourism Revenue (2023) (in USD)
1	United States	University of South Carolina	83	66.5 million [36,37,38]	USD 213.1 billion [36,37,38]
2	China	University of International Business and Economics, Beijing	49	82 million [39]	USD 730 billion [40]
3	United Kingdom	Middlesex University London	47	35.1 million [41]	USD 37.5 billion [41]
4	India	Pune Institute of Business Management, Pune	41	9.2 million [42]	USD 27.5 billion [42,43]
5	Spain	Universidad Complutense de Madrid	33	84 million [44]	USD 129 billion [45]
6	Australia	Griffith University	22	7.3 million [46]	USD 28.6 billion [46]
7	Hong Kong	The Hong Kong Polytechnic University	22	34 million [47,48]	USD 23 billion [47,48]
8	South Korea	University of Ulsan	19	11.03 million [49,50]	USD 13.5 billion [49,50]
9	Turkey	Nevsehir Haci Bektas Veli University	19	19 million [51]	USD 19 billion [51]
10	Italy	University of Rome la Sapienza (Italy)	18	445.3 million [52]	USD 55.9 billion [53]

Note: TP** = total publication in the field of trust and building rapport in hospitality.

.

Table 3 and Figure 6 shows the 10 most productive countries in building trust in the hospitality area, illustrating the topic distributions of the top prolific countries/regions and establishments. Based on TP, Table 3 shows which countries are most important in this respect, based on data from the Scopus database. For example, the most productive country was the “United States”, with a total number of publications of 83 within the University of South Carolina. They were followed by “China”, with a total number of publications of 49, within the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, and followed by the “United Kingdom”, with a total number of publications of 47, within Middlesex University London. Moreover, other prolific, productive countries in trust in hospitality area data are presented in Table 3 and Figure 7.

Next, this study examined the relationship of co-authorship with countries related to trust and building rapport in hospitality using VOSviewer software. The highest total number of link strengths of co-authorship and country was in the United States, with 55 links involving 82 documents and 4332 TC. As shown in Figure 8, the country with the second highest link strength was China, which also had 46 links with other countries, involving 49 documents and 1946 TC. The map also shows relationships between other countries’ co-authorships.

Figure 9 displays the number of documents contributed by corresponding authors from various countries, differentiating between two types of collaboration: multiple-country publications (MCP) and single-country publications (SCP).

On the y-axis, there is information about the countries of the corresponding authors and, on the x-axis, the number of documents authored. The legend uses red bars for MCP, representing several documents created by authors from different countries, and turquoise bars for SCP.

Notably, Figure 9 indicates that China has the highest number of documents, with a nearly equal share of MCP and SCP. The USA is immediately behind, with a large number of documents, the majority of which are single-country publications (SCP). Other countries offering a high number of SCPs include India, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The percentages of MCPs and SCPs are nearly equal in the participating countries, such as Korea, Turkey, and Italy.

The significance of this figure relates to the fact that the contributions of research in the field of trust and rapport within the context of the hospitality industry acknowledge the geographical distribution of the area. Thus, one could observe that the USA and India, with numerous SCPs, are top performers in terms of national research input. As a result, the existence of MCPs demonstrates active cross-country collaboration, which is necessary for developing international research communities and information exchange.

There is another form in which contributors may be depicted: on a map, which will show the contributions of the countries where the corresponding authors of the studied articles are located. This visualization would have helped categorize the research areas by geographical location in the hospitality industry. It notes that the progress in trust and relationship development levels is based on both national and international co-operation.

To determine the significance of the study on the improvement of trust and rapport in the hospitality industry, we established the correlation between a country’s publication output and the corresponding tourism performance. Table 3 displays the 10 most productive countries in this research area and the corresponding expected tourist arrivals and tourism revenue for 2023. The United States produces the most research, 83 publications, and records 66.5 million arrivals and USD 213.1 billion in business travel sales. Likewise, in Spain, with 33 publications, 84 million tourists were recorded visiting the country with USD 129 billion total earnings. The specific observation of the correlation in given sets of countries analyzed at the beginning of this work indicates the possible positive relation linking investment in the given research direction—people’s trust and rapport—to the countries’ ability to attract tourists and produce revenues.

On the other hand, the research production China was 49 articles, twice as many as Australia but a relatively low 82 million tourists compared to Spain, and, while they revealed USD 730 billion in revenue, this can largely be attributed to a massive influx of domestic travelers’ post-COVID restrictions. This shows that the tourism environment carried a different perspective and different variables that determine the outgoing are beyond establishing trust and rapport. For example, the involvement of tourism revenue of China is much affected by a big domestic market, while the equivalence of Spain depends much on the international tourists. The United Kingdom has had a relatively large volume of research output at 47 publications and yet there were significantly lower tourist arrivals of 35.1 million and tourist revenue of USD 37.5 billion when compared to the US or Spain. This difference could be explained by factors such as high prices, strict visa regulations, or the fact that the marketing of tourism products is different. India also has low numbers of tourist arrivals (9.2 million) and income (USD 27.5 billion) but a much greater amount of research, with 41 publications. This refers to issues such as infrastructure problems and safety concerns.

Moreover, there are also several countries possessing comparatively low research outputs (18) in the context of this analysis while delivering bright results on international tourism performance, such as Italy (445.3 million arrivals; USD 55.9 billion tourism revenues). This indicates that actual practical experience and the existence of a tourism infrastructure will be more important to their success than theoretical studies of trust and building rapport. The absence of a simple positive causal relationship between research productivity and tourism effectiveness highlights the complexity of tourism as a sector. However, the criteria of trust and rapport are not the only significant factors; availability, price, security, and marketing are also significant factors. More research is required to uncover these relationships and to define the pathways by which research on trust and rapport can help enhance the perceived benefits of tourism. This may include a qualitative study on the tourism policies and operations of these top countries and organizational entities established in this study.

3.4. Research Question 4

4.

What are the primary research keywords for trust and rapport-building research in hospitality?

For the bibliometric analysis of the most used keywords, “Co-occurrence” was selected as the analysis type and “All keywords” was marked as the unit. In this context, 61 keywords have been identified from the data set, as shown in Figure 10.

A map depicting the co-occurrence associations between every term in the Scopus database can be seen in Figure 10. When Figure 10 is examined, the keywords used in the studies are listed as “hospitality industry” (Occurrences “Oc” = 74), “trust” (Oc = 90), “hospitality” (Oc = 53), “perception” (Oc = 23), “tourism” (Oc = 29), and “hotel industry” (Oc = 18). These were followed by marketing, COVID-19, sharing economy, and social media (see

Table 4. List of the keywords, occurrences, and total link strength (all keywords) (source: authors’ construction based on Scopus database).

Keyword	Occurrences	Total Link Strength
Hospitality industry	74	210
Trust and digital trust	90	170
hospitality	53	101
perception	23	95
tourism	29	66
Hotel industry	18	62
marketing	11	61
COVID-19	29	54
Sharing economy	17	49
Social media	16	49
sustainability	14	47
airbnb	15	44
Satisfaction	19	44
Decision making	9	39
Tourist behavior	7	38
Public attitude	7	37
Questionnaire survey	7	37
Strategic approach	7	35
Research work	7	34
Consumption behavior	9	32

).

In addition, this study analyzed the incidence of author keywords, as seen in Figure 11. The most often occurring term was “trust”, which appeared 85 times and had a total of 99 linkages with other keywords. The second most occurring keyword was “hospitality”, with 53 occurrences. The map also includes other terms such as “satisfaction” (Oc = 19), “Hospitality industry” (Oc = 28), “COVID-19” (Oc = 23), and “Customer loyalty” (Oc = 10).

According to Figure 12, the hospitality industry easily links customer trust and rapport to perceptions, satisfaction, and loyalty. Some key approaches to managing trust include customized service delivery, sharing information, integrating AI, and open communication to reinforce customer relationships.

In Figure 13, these different thematic areas are depicted on a thematic map, showing how they fit within the overall study of trust and rapport in the hospitality industry. This map is divided into four quadrants based on two dimensions: the density degree and the centrality degree are the two degree measures commonly used in sociological network development. The presented quadrants allow for further classification of the themes into different forms depending on their features and relevance in the field of research.

The last segment of the top-right part, titled Motor Themes, contains themes like artificial intelligence, trust, humans, the hospitality industry, perception, and tourism. These themes are both highly central and have high density, which suggests that they are two strong and pertinent focuses in the research domain. The large size of these bubbles indicates that these topics are integral to the analysis of trust and rapport within the context of the hospitality industry and are closely connected with other issues.

The upper-left quadrant contains themes, which may include elements such as hotels, quality assurance, and service. Thus, while they are densely related to other topics, the general centrality of niche themes is comparatively low. These themes are particular and very elaborate in the given fields, but they are not as essential for the general research field. It can be said that they have a significant impact on some narrow sectors of the hospitality industry.

The Basic Themes phase is located in the lower right quadrant; it covers topics like elderliness, economics–environment, housing, and India. Basic themes are those that are highly central but have a low density. These topics are basic for the research field and rather relevant, but they do not seem as elaborated and linked as the motor topics. They constitute the foundation of the research domain.

Finally, the emerging or declining concerns, which include price policy and hedonic analysis, fall into the lower-left quadrant. These themes have low density with low centrality, a sign that they are either new areas that have not been developed fully or declining in importance. These themes are outside of the mainstream research focus.

Based on the keywords, the results of the present factorial analysis are represented in Figure 14. The first dimension (the horizontal axis) accounts for 36% of the variance. The second factor explained 17% of the variance and includes the following keywords: tourism management, sustainability, COVID-19, technology adoption, employment, theoretical study, and risk assessment. According to these keywords, there is a greater emphasis on the practical and theoretical management of tourism and the difficulties and possibilities of future tourism management. The second dimension, the vertical axis, accounts for 13 percent of the variance in the data used for this study, making the two dimensions jointly account for 28 percent of the used data. The second factor accounts for 69 percent of the variability and includes descriptors such as “questionnaire survey”, “world-wide web”, “comparative study”, “United Kingdom”, “England”, “internet”, “sales”, “artificial intelligence”, “robotics”, and “controlled study”. These terms indicate a concern with procedures, approaches, and geographical and virtual areas for tourism research. The figure also depicts groups of related keywords, using “tourism development” and “competitiveness” among them, indicating that they are interconnected within the tourism research. This figure is useful for better understanding the trends and themes in the analyzed tourism research area.

3.5. Research Question 5

5.

What is the most important subject area involving digital trust and building rapport and hospitality?

In order to address the fifth research question, which aimed to determine the most significant subject area regarding trust and rapport building in the hospitality sector, the data were evaluated according to the subject area. As shown in Figure 15, the Business, Management, and Accounting category accounted for the most significant proportion (44%) or 306 out of the published publications. Thus, it would seem that the most relevant subject matter with relation to trust and hospitality is business, management, and accounting. The total of 158 (23%) items from the Social Sciences category came next. The field of neuroscience has the fewest articles in a single document. Figure.15 presents the remaining data from various publications pertaining to hospitality and trust in relation to the topic area.

4. Discussion, Implications, and Recommendations

This study is significant for its nature as a cohesive and thorough review of trust and rapport development literature within the context of tourism and hospitality. Predictably, some of the findings, for example, the discovery of leading countries, will correlate with expectations and conjectures and therefore seem authoritative. However, there are also several advantages to the systematic approach. It creates a solid vision of the analyzed research area, showing how the field has changed over time, which publications and authors occupy the leading positions, and which topics have attracted researchers’ interest most of all. This cumulative knowledge is helpful in launching subsequent research studies in the same field since the scholars can expand more on such gaps that have not been explored before in such an essential area of study. All research questions were answered and presented in chronological order per the details mentioned in the study conducted on the documents acquired from the Scopus database. As depicted, there was an increasing trend in the number of published papers on digital trust and hospitality from 2014 to 2023. This shows conclusively the growing appreciation of the hospitality industry for the need to focus on rapport and trust. As Rocha et al. [22] pointed out, firms must get involved in human relations to provide better services, as hospitality can influence the services that firms offer to stakeholders. This current upsurge in interest in building trust and rapport in the context of hospitality can be attributed to the following reasons: increased consumer expectation [7], reviews and social media [54], increased competition [55], technology adoption [56,57,58], shift in business and models [59,60,61], and response to crises such as COVID-19 [62]. Wang et al. [21] also mentioned that, since 1990, scholars in the field of hospitality and tourism have shifted their attention to developing the subject of customer trust, which is seen as an important element for the building and maintenance of any kind of relationship. The last decade has witnessed a surge in trust and rapport-building in these publications.

Furthermore, the bibliometric analysis shows that International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management published the most relevant journals in digital trust and building rapport in the hospitality industry. The most frequently cited article was “The Role of Customer Engagement in Building Consumer Loyalty to Tourism Brands”. This article demonstrated that customer engagement raises brand loyalty, trust, and consumer appraisal. The findings demonstrate that consumer participation beyond the service encounter may enhance service brand loyalty in addition to the service consumption experience [63]. The article from the most prolific author in this analysis, Busser, J.A. from the University of Nevada in the USA, found that value suggestions from providers with varied business models were viewed negatively by hospitality customers based on their assessments of the competitive service advantage (CSA), subjective well-being, and trustworthiness of the organizations. CSA increased the results and acted as a mediator for trust, subjective well-being, and buy intention [64].

Furthermore, this study revealed that the United States was the most influential nation in the field of digital trust and rapport building in hospitality research, as shown by the largest number of publications. The University of South Carolina was the country’s most important university. According to one of the most cited articles from the United States, appearance did not affect the level of rapport between an employee and a guest. Instead, eye contact and kindness are essential for developing this relationship and increasing customer satisfaction [65]. The historical connections that the UK and Spain have with different cultures may partially explain the emphasis on trust and rapport-building research; however, more investigation into the nature of the impact of historical context on the research carried out in tourism is required. For example, a culture of colonialism and globalization may have enhanced the understanding of intercultural communication difficulties and the role of trust in tourism settings in these nations. Perhaps it could have influenced the direction and availability of funding for research in this area, which is why more studies have been produced in this domain.

Furthermore, the exclusion of Greece and Turkey from the list of the 10 most productive countries in building trust and rapport is noticed in this study; however, the two countries have a dynamic tourism sector. This may be attributed to other factors such as funding targeted for research and, specifically, the focus of research undertaken in the tourism field in these countries. For instance, Greek and Turkish institutions may have inadequate funding sources for research on tourism issues, a relatively unreconstructed research base in comparison with countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom, or choose other subjects of tourism research, giving less preference to the matters of trust and rapport. More studies are required concerning these possible factors and with a view to becoming more familiar with the study areas in these countries.

The results have significant management ramifications for high-contact businesses like hospitality and tourism and expand upon the rapport literature. Another study suggests that customers are more likely to believe reviewers who evaluate businesses that are similar to their own, utilize websites that are comparable, and have supplemental identities to their original review [23].

Additionally, this study examined the main research keywords for rapport building and trust in the hotel sector during the last 10 years. Based on the findings, the keywords most often used in the study field were “trust” and “hospitality industry”. Additionally, this had a substantial co-occurrence with every other keyword. Research about potential ways to optimize rapport in hospitality agrees that, when serving customers who displayed low to medium levels of rudeness, agreeable hospitality personnel reported higher rapport than disagreeable hospitality employees. This suggests that agreeableness considerably moderates the association between customer incivility and rapport [66]. Customer satisfaction is impacted by customer trust. Additionally, a strong correlation exists between consumer trust and retention of customers [67]. Furthermore, CSR influences tourist satisfaction and trust, indirectly affecting tourist loyalty [68].

This study also identified the most critical subject areas involving trust and building rapport, namely business, management, and accounting. Business, management and accounting, social sciences, environmental science, and other social sciences fields are brought together by the hospitality industry to investigate and comprehend theoretical and practical phenomena [69]. Trust, commitment, and repurchase intention positively and significantly correlate in the hospitality industry [70].

In summary, based on the findings of this study from 2014 to 2023, it can be concluded that research on this topic has evolved into an emerging research area. This trend highlights the importance of several attributes that are needed in building and establishing trust and customer relationships that lead to loyalty and success for the business. As this paper found out, these elements include increasing customer demands and awareness, users’ reviews on social media, increased competition, new technologies, shift in the value proposition, and the effects of controversies like the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the major research areas of focus emerging from this study included customer interactions, establishing competitive service differentiation, employee conduct’s relationship with rapport, and the place of corporate responsibility in fostering trust. The hospitality businesses need to enrich their knowledge about what customers expect from them and how to build effective strategies to meet their needs and ensure long-term success in a highly competitive environment.

4.1. Theoretical Implications

This study’s theoretical contribution is to identify the body of knowledge on trust and rapport building in the hospitality industry and to provide practitioners, academics, and researchers with crucial resources. The idea of trust and building rapport have been extensively addressed in this subject, and the current literature review examines the intellectual, social, and conceptual frameworks of knowledge. This bibliometric study is a helpful technique for assessing scientific output and a helpful resource for providing academic knowledge about the hospitality sector. It gathers the increasing number of publications and pinpoints future directions and development patterns, including marketing, social media, sustainability, satisfaction, decision making, and loyalty. Because of this, scholars can identify important papers with the most citations. They can locate relevant journals in this sector, choose one of the most prestigious journals for publication, or locate global partnerships and possible partners in related nations and establishments.

4.2. Practical Implications

The results of this study contain important practical implications for hospitality ventures that aim to build rapport and trust relationships with foreign customers. This study also stresses the importance of trust and rapport as factors that may contribute to a high level of customer satisfaction and loyalty, especially if the customer comes from another culture. Thus, the focus on these aspects will allow hospitality organizations to generate the necessary trustful atmosphere, which will help enhance customers’ satisfaction, their direct loyalty, and the organization’s business success.

A significant shift is indicated in this study to show that technological interaction plays a critical role in the development of trust and interpersonal relationships. Hospitality organizations need to identify integrated approaches to digital communications like mobile applications, online referrals, and social media to offer customized services and handle customer complaints. These tools can be used to ensure the enhancement of transparency and interactivity among international guests.

In addition, this study underlines the importance of cultural aspects in hospitality management. The detracting factors such as cultural differences can impact the extent of trust and rapport. It is recommended that management and organizations develop and implement policies, practices, and procedures on how to train employees on culture awareness, written and verbal communication skills, and how to deal with situations where there is language barrier. This impacts the international guests positively as they feel accepted and are therefore more capable of enjoying their hospitality.

It is also apparent from this study that the expectations of consumers have changed tremendously in recent times. That means hospitality businesses must change their focus by providing customers with a broad spectrum of services, meeting all their possible needs and expectations, and developing specific working methods to improve guests’ satisfaction. With these dynamics present, businesses need to be responsive to these changing expectations to sustain a potent foothold within the dynamic competition of the hospitality industry.

Therefore, it is significant that practitioners and policymakers engage with the growing body of research into the development and construction of trust and rapport within tourism regarding a comprehensive understanding of how these three elements—research findings, tourist behavior, and economic consequences—interrelate in informing approaches that seek to enhance both the visitor experience and sustainability. These interrelations should be explored in further detail since doing so would provide significant insights to inform decision-making processes and help to implement findings more effectively. The relationship between the output of research on trust and rapport building and the levels of tourism or economic impact for individual countries or regions could also be quite revealing. For instance, do the levels of tourist arrival or revenue generation by tourism in these countries with higher research output in these areas have a direct relationship? Such information shall establish if there exists a relationship between fiscal investment in this area of research and quantifiable economic benefits accruing to the tourism industry.

Additionally, the requirement arises for an assessment of whether expertly derived knowledge on issues of trust and rapport building is translated into actual policy changes or operational realities within the industry. Do tourism organizations and destination management organizations in their strategies to market and manage international tourists take up such research findings? Are evidence-informed practices to build trust and develop rapport with customers from diverse cultural backgrounds being adopted? In-depth review and critical analysis of policy documents established industry best practices, and case studies where their successful implementation can be demonstrated can highlight practical applications of this research domain and further identify ways of securing improvement.

Furthermore, schemes or measures that can find tangible impact of such studies in terms of building trust and rapport in the tourism industry need to be developed. Identification of KPIs will show successful implementation of research deliverables, improvement in customer satisfaction and loyalty, positive online reviews, or increase in cross-cultural understanding. Development of standardized metrics would thus make it possible to explore more systematically a variety of strategies and interventions regarding the effectiveness of different trust and rapport-building principles, raising the potential for industry capacity to translate research into actual gains in tourism experience.

Due to the importance of social circumstances in the tourism business, some types of government actions for boosting the level of trust and rapport building are the following. These policies may be intended to make the destination environment more secure and more reliable, thus pursuing the establishment of digital trust. Governments should adopt certain rules that make the market more transparent in terms of price and service delivery, establish standards for customer relations, or establish safe and efficient technological platforms.

In addition, they could make some changes to the market towards greater transparency in terms of prices and services, define certain standards for interaction with customers, or provide some innovations. In most of such cases, such attempts can be seen in tourism development strategies or tourism annual reports or policy documents released by the national tourism offices/organizations of countries pointing towards the strategies that have been taken for enhancing the experience and building confidence regarding the destination offerings [10].

Similarly, the top performers of the hospitality industries in the countries chosen for analysis have also taken measures to embrace new techniques in fostering trust and a relationship with the tourists. This involves a process by which the company assesses its ability to meet customers through an analysis of the corporate website, advertisements, and customer relations strategies. In addition, many organizations currently declare their priority on customers through transparent statements of their regulations regarding health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic [7].

The effects demonstrated by these modifications on the policies and business practices are vast and complex. Intensive trust and rapport improvement leads to more tourism inflows, as the potential tourists feel secure. Additionally, these initiatives can enhance the revenue, and higher satisfaction levels can lead to higher rates of returning customers and word-of-mouth referrals. Furthermore, it emerged that enhanced trust is directly linked to increased customer loyalty, which the hospitality industry can view as a long-term source of revenue. By assessing these impacts, stakeholders become more aware of the outcomes of existing approaches and may find other areas to enhance the generalized tourist experience.

Nevertheless, several governments and leading hospitality companies and industries around the world have created the most effective strategies and policies to enhance trust and rapport with tourists. For instance, the New Zealand government recently launched Tourism Futures Taskforce [71], through which the increased room rates are expected to operate in conjunction with practices that will make the tourism model fully transparent and ecologically sound. Likewise, in Spain, the Spain Tourism Strategic Plan guidelines [72] include key objectives for enhancing the standards of customer service as well as ensuring the safety of tourists by means of applications which offer real-time information of various tourism services. On the business side, Marriott International launched the “Commitment to Clean” [73]. During COVID-19, a program informing consumers about hygiene measures and putting customer health on top of the priority list would help attract customers. Furthermore, Accor Hotels obtained a global “ALLSAFE” [74] that would embrace the company’s cleanliness protocols to guarantee clients of the higher-standard hygiene measures in a bid to advance transparency and customer satisfaction. The above examples demonstrate how governments and corporations are implementing socialization with tourists for better customer relations and, thus, increased brand loyalty, among other benefits.

4.3. Recommendation

The recommendation for CSR asserts that tourist satisfaction and trust will be enhanced if a firm participates in CSR activities. Every hospitality organization ought to embrace other extra-legal activities; these include environmental conservation, social responsibility in discovering and contributing to the betterment of the society, as well as practicing responsible tourism to gain the society’s trust and support in the long run. Such values could be highlighted to achieve a deeper stakeholders’ perception of the companies as possessing such values and, therefore, improving their brand image.

Tourism and hospitality businesses need to build more individualized service models to create digital trust and a relationship. Customized solutions should be centered on individual preferences and cultural nuances. Organizations will use data analytics and learn from consumer feedback to tailor experiences that create stronger connections with the global customer base. This will eventually help hotels and tourism service providers to be able to forecast their customers’ requirements, enhance overall satisfaction, and stimulate long-term loyalty.

Another important result found in this study is that digital trust varies with respect to cultural diversity. To achieve it holistically, training employees in cultural awareness would empower them with the much-needed tools for cross-cultural interactions. Knowledge of language proficiency, respect in communication, and sensitivity to cultural nuance will be a source of confidence building and engendering trust in foreign customers. In a formalized training format, the employees will be better equipped to deal with the expectations and concerns of diverse customers.

Technology integration is one of the most important factors affecting customer interaction and perceptions regarding trust. It is also critical for hospitality businesses to further adopt innovative digital tools, such as AI-powered customer service platforms, chatbots, and mobile applications that may help smoothen communication in all areas and create an atmosphere of transparent and trustworthy service. However, it is also worth considering that technology will supplement human interaction instead of replacing it, especially when it comes to building rapport and various other processes where a personal touch is so important.

The results show that the research in trust and rapport-building techniques is enormous among countries. Thus, it is expected that researchers and practitioners would work in the direction of cross-border collaboration to fill these knowledge gaps and model trust that will be applied universally. Involvement by scholars and institutions from these under-represented regions may disclose knowledge in trust in tourism and hospitality and make research approaches more inclusive and diverse.

Finally, including mechanisms of continuous measurement, such as customer satisfaction surveys, trust audits, and feedback collecting, would nurture and continue to enhance digital trust. This, in turn, would track the performances of a trust-building strategy and indicate where improvements might be performed. It allows firms to institute standardized metrics on trust and rapport development that make firm performance comparable at different times and to change strategies if customers’ needs change.

5. Future Research Directions

This study provides practical advantages in mapping the existing research theme of trust and rapport building in the tourism and hospitality industry; however, it has certain limitations. Using the number of publications as a measure of research activity does not accurately reflect the level of research involvement or the quality of the studies conducted. Therefore, future research should consider important questions such as the impact and influence of this research. Subsequent research should embrace other indicators like h-index, Altmetrics score, or the qualitative analysis of the scope of the studies that were performed in different countries or regions.

As with most studies, there is a clear need for more research and exploration of the phenomenon, one of which is the detailed impact of culture on the development of trust and rapport. As a suggestion, the current study focuses on cultural sensitivity; future research should explore the different cultural sensitivities unique to each culture. This could include research on cultural implications, including self- versus other-oriented cultures, methods of communication, use of gestures, and cultural norms or standards regarding customer experiences. Knowledge of such specific cultural factors would enable hospitality employees to have proper means of implementing appropriate strategies to foster trust and partnership with international customers.

Additionally, more research needs to be conducted into inconsistent treatment affecting tourists from various countries with relevance to the vetting system, the nature of the monitoring regime, and the nature of the tourists’ disruptive behavior. These aspects contribute significantly to developing mechanisms for enacting confidence and good cross-cultural exchange within tourism settings. Other areas that might be considered in future research are how differences in the three vetting systems influence perceived trust and safety of tourists. Such research may investigate how visa requirements, background checks, and other security arrangements affect tourists' perceptions of personal safety and trust in the host country’s authorities and tourism suppliers. Recognizing these interplays becomes critical in devising schemes for vetting that balance concerns about security with the need to promote travel and assure positive experiences amongst tourists.

Specific research could be conducted on the techniques employed in the surveillance and the corresponding issues involving privacy and the perceived invasion on experiences of tourists. Such studies may find, for example, if varying levels of surveillance including but not limited to closed-circuit television cameras, facial recognition technologies, and data monitoring affect the perceptions of privacy and overall satisfaction of traveling tourists. It is important to understand these dynamics in the prescription of surveillance strategies that balance safety imperatives against the need to respect tourist privacy in a setting that encourages friendly and enjoyable traveling.

Furthermore, future studies might consider examining cultural differences regarding what constitutes disruptive tourist behavior and how these impact residents’ activities and experiences. Such work can further be elaborated on how cultural beliefs and values underpin the norms of what comprises acceptable and unacceptable behavior in the contexts of tourism and how such meanings may vary across cultures. These subtleties form the bases on which the development of strategies that prevent adverse impacts associated with disruptive behavior but enable positive intercultural exchange must be taken with considerable earnestness.

Likewise, future studies could explore strategies to reduce the impacts of disruptive tourist behavior while maximizing positive cross-cultural contacts. This approach will facilitate gaining insight into whether educational campaigns, programs of community outreach, and alliances between tour operators and local communities can effectively build up understanding, respect, and benefits in tourist–host interactions.

Another area that seems to hold a lot of potential for future research is the use of technology in developing trust and rapport. This study acknowledges the fact that there has been an increase in the level of automation in the hospitality industry’s processes. Further studies could be conducted regarding how technology can be adopted for building trust and rapport by concentrating on unique methods of technology use, including the efficacy of unique technology types, settings, and approaches. This may involve exploration of how issues such as customer reviews, virtual assistant conversations, virtual reality tours, and chatbots influence aspect of trust among customers.

This study also includes factors affecting trust and rapport building, especially due to the social distancing brought by COVID-19. Future study must focus on how crises like the pandemic, natural disasters, or economic instability influence customer trust in hotels. As such, it is important to determine how and why trust is lost or regained in these circumstances and identify the factors that hinder and enhance its emergence. It may provide useful information on how best to develop effective and dependable strategies that may be used to manage customer relationships in the presence of various and unpredictable issues.

In addition, this study shows that training is necessary to increase trust and rapport between an employer and an employee. Further studies could explore the ways, in which specific interventions, aimed at improving the perception of cultural diversity and interaction in hospitality employees, could be more effective. Knowing how these programs alter on-the-job behavior, customer attitudes, and organizational outcomes could be more beneficial.

This study also revealed a possible correlation between trust, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It might also be beneficial for subsequent studies to analyze these factors to describe how these influence consumer behavior, brand image, and organizational performance. The interconnection between trust, sustainability [75], and CSR is complex and is important for hospitality businesses to consider when formulating effective CSR strategies.

Last, a future study can attempt to apply new research methodologies to the analysis of trust and rapport building to identify and assess their multifaceted characteristics. Although this study used bibliometric analysis, future studies might use other complex measures like sentiment analysis and network analysis, in addition to restricted graphical models and advanced machine-learning techniques. These approaches could contain broader perspectives about the aspects that affect customer trust and ways to build long-term and beneficial partnerships. This study provides valuable insights crucial for both academic scholars and practitioners in the tourism and hospitality industry. Thus, the results offer a valuable resource for scholars who may aspire to obtain further insights into the topics pertaining to trust and rapport building within the current literature, which has been documented and primary trends outlined.

Furthermore, it is possible to identify key authors, journals, and research topics, thus making the subsequent studies in this important field more focused and useful. Some of the identified conclusions may be considered obvious. Yet, the strict and thorough work that has been conducted in this bibliometric analysis allows for building the basis for further theoretical and applied improvements in improving trust and relationship building within the tourism and hospitality industry. Appendix A summarizes all the results and applications of the study along with future studies.